Healthcare Plans Join Ranks of Those Suing Big Pharma Over Opioid Crisis

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Two healthcare plans have joined the ranks of those suing Big Pharma heavyweights over their alleged contributions to the national opioid crisis that has devastated the nation.

According to two lawsuits, the defendants—pharmaceutical companies, distributors, and retailers—have fueled the opioid epidemic through two avenues: deceptive marketing and negligent supply chain oversight. The cases, filed in Ohio’s Northern District, allege that the pharmaceutical company defendants encouraged healthcare providers to prescribe opioids by marketing the pain drugs for long-term use while understating the risk of addiction. In turn, the distributor and retail defendants failed in their duty to maintain proper oversight of the drugs’ supply chain and ignored suspicious bulk orders, the cases say. This conduct, the lawsuits go on to say, has had devasting results:

“The increased volume of opioid prescribing correlates directly to skyrocketing addiction, overdose, and death; black markets for diverted prescription opioids; and a concomitant rise in heroin and fentanyl abuse by individuals who could no longer legally acquire—or simply could not afford— prescription opioids.”

The lawsuits claim that the costs of responding to this crisis—including emergency responses to overdoses, addiction treatment, and treating newborns addicted to opioids—have been shouldered by the plaintiffs, multi-employer healthcare plans for local union members.

“The burdens imposed on Plaintiff are not the normal or typical burdens of benefit payments and insurance coverage,” one of the complaints states. “Rather, these are extraordinary costs and losses that are directly related to Defendants’ illegal actions. Plaintiff, and the benefits it provides to its members, employees, and beneficiaries, have been strained to the breaking point by this public health crisis.”

The two complaints can be read below.